Asteroid mining company is now hiring. Just in time for 2012 DA14

Frik Els | February 9, 2013 | 8:28 pm Base Metals Nickel Platinum 
Asteroid mining company is hiring. Just in time for 2012 DA14

Given that 2012 DA14 will be hurtling (in astronomical terms) a hair’s breadth from the earth on Friday, now is a great time to send in your application to become an asteroid miner.

Which is probably why Chris Lewicki President & Chief Asteroid Miner of Planetary Resources, the Seattle-based asteroid exploration company, on Saturday sent out new information about how to become an asteroid miner and opened the summer and fall student program.

The 130,000 tonne asteroid – around 45 meters across – will pass by at a distance of just over 27,000 kilometers.

That’s tantalizingly close and may just unleash the interplanetary prospector in you.

Provided you can answer the following questions:

  • Are you a space nut? Prove it!
  • Look around your home. How would we know that you are an engineer?
  • What are your three favorite tools to get the job done? What makes them your favorites?
  • What do you want to get out of working for Planetary Resources?
  • What do you do for fun?
  • Have you seen a product through its full life cycle: design, analysis, fab, assembly, test, and ops?
  • Have you designed and built hardware that someone else has used?
  • Have you written code that someone else has used?
  • Do you know how to use a mill and a lathe?
  • Can you debug a PCB?
  • Does a convoluted, system-level problem make you tingle with excitement?
  • Do you know how to create an interplanetary spacecraft trajectory to a celestial target?
  • Are you a mean cook?
  • Can you fix the heat if it breaks?
  • We would recognize your handiwork on such space missions or product releases as…
  • Are your soldering skills are best described as Cro-Magnon, Offensive, Survivable, Clean and Functional, Mil-spec compliant, or Angelic (cue choir sounds)?
  • How would you feel about moving to the Seattle area?
  • At Planetary Resources, we fail. A lot. In fact, we celebrate failure. Give us an example of one of your failures, how you fixed it, and what you learned from it.
  • What name would you give a crash test dummy, and why?
  • Paste a link to a picture that best describes you, but is not OF you.
  • If you were asked to give a 20 minute presentation on a subject for which you consider yourself an expert, what would be the topic of the presentation?

Read more at Planetary Resources…

Image showing asteroid 951 Gaspra (top) compared with Deimos (lower left) and Phobos (lower right), the moons of Mars by NASA.

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